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The Procrastination Doom Loop—and How to Break It
The Atlantic: When I woke up this morning, I had one goal: Finish this article by 11 a.m. So, predictably, by the time it was 10 a.m., I had made and consumed two cups of coffee, taken out the trash, cleaned my room while taking a deliberately slow approach to folding my shirts, gone on a walk outside to clear my head, had a thing of yogurt and fruit to reward the physical exertion, sent an email to my aunt and sister, read about 100 Tweets (favorited three; written and deleted one), despaired at my lack of progress, comforted myself by eating a second breakfast, opened several tabs from ESPN.com on my browser ... and written absolutely nothing.
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Ditch the laptop and pick up a pen, class. Researchers say it’s better for note taking.
The Washington Post: Using technology in the classroom can produce fabulous results, but for note-taking, it may pay to keep it old-school and stick with pen and paper. Students who take longhand notes appear to process information more deeply than those who take notes on a laptop, according to a study published this year in Psychological Science. Using the newfangled method generally produces more raw notes, researchers say in the study, “The Pen Is Mightier Than the Keyboard,” which was published in April. (The study was resurfaced this week by Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, as students return to school.) Read the whole story: The Washington Post
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Dads’ Housework Inspires Girls’ Ambitions
The Wall Street Journal: Fathers who help with the dishes and laundry may play an important role in shaping their daughters' future, suggests a study in the August issue of Psychological Science. Researchers found that fathers who performed an equal share of household chores were more likely to have daughters who aspired to less traditionally feminine occupations, such as astronaut, marine biologist, geologist, police officer and professional hockey or soccer player. Fathers who believed in gender equality and yet left most of the housework to mothers had daughters who favored more traditionally feminine careers, such as nursing, fashion designer, librarian and stay-at-home mom.
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Are Smart Kids Better at Drawing?
New York Magazine: The messy, free-form way that preschool kids draw is adorable. (Sure, kid, people totally have arms and legs growing out of their heads. Looks great.) But can these anatomically questionable pictures tell us anything else about the children who drew them? One team of U.K. psychologists sought to answer that, and in a new paper, they argue that the way a child draws at age 4 can predict intelligence at age 14. The research will appear in an upcoming paper in Psychological Science, and the press release summarizes the findings like so: At the age of 4, children were asked by their parents to complete a ‘Draw-a-Child’ test, i.e. draw a picture of a child.
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Get Tech Out of Schools
Slate: One thousand: That’s approximately the number of instructional hours required of U.S. middle school and high school students each year. Four thousand: That’s approximately the number of hours of digital media content U.S. youths aged 8 to 18 absorb each year.
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Dating and Romance: The Problem With Kindness
Here’s a simple and sad fact. A lot of people who are married, or in long-term relationships, are not very compatible. Partners disagree about very basic stuff, like religion and politics and values, or they simply don’t find each other attractive. Just look at the divorce statistics. This raises a knotty and important question. If choosing a partner is such an important life decision, why do so many of us get it wrong? Why does the reality of a relationship fail so often to match our ideals? Obviously there are a lot of little differences that emerge over time, and people do change, but it seems like we should at least get the fundamental issues straight.
